Brain Dumb
by LovelyFarron
Summary: If Fionna hadn't been so caught up in the mushy stuff going on inside her brain, she would have been off sawing logs herself, but as it was, Marshall Lee's face was haunting her every waking moment and just waiting for her to close her eyes so he could intrude upon her dreams.


Cartoon: Adventure Time

Pairing: Marshall Lee/Fionna

Genre: Romance/Humor

Rating: K+

Brain Dumb

Fionna puffed out her cheeks and stared at the ceiling, frustrated. Marshall Lee was a giant jerk, a giant jerk that she never wanted to see again or so help her she'd smack him till he was singing country music. She knew that he liked to mess with her head; she knew that he liked to tease her, but…why had he had to pull a brain dumb stunt like that?

Sighing, the young adventurer turned over on her side and stared out the window of her room. The sun was just going down and the Vampire King would doubtless be showing up soon. He would act like nothing had happened, open her window, and float inside like he owned the place. She supposed she could get Cake up, but then poor Marshall Lee would be fighting for his life against one angry cat. Besides, her sister could use some rest after the excitement of adventuring they'd had that day.

If Fionna hadn't been so caught up in the mushy stuff going on inside her brain, she would have been off sawing logs herself, but as it was, Marshall Lee's face was haunting her every waking moment and just waiting for her to close her eyes so he could intrude upon her dreams. He'd been distracting her all day and the last thing she wanted was for him to spoil some perfectly good fantasy.

"Stupid Paste Face."

Fionna rolled over on to her other side, this time facing the wall of the tree house.

There was a chance that he wouldn't visit her tonight, though it was a slim one. He had felt horrible after his stupid little stunt of pretending to die—and Fionna's teeth clenched tightly, hands curling together in anger at the thought of it—which was saying something since he was apparently "bad to the bone." If he really was as evil as he claimed to be, he wouldn't have felt an ounce of remorse.

She'd beat him up and that had more than likely scared the apology out of him, but she couldn't help but feel like it had been sincere, even if it had been inspired by fear. Maybe it was because she liked to believe the best in her friends, maybe it was because in such a messed up world she wanted to be optimistic. She didn't know. Things always got scrambled like eggs when it came to him.

"I'd like to scramble him," she muttered under her breath as she clutched her pillow to her chest, cheeks heating up.

"Scramble who?"

"Yaaa!"

Fionna nearly jumped out her skin as Marshall Lee's breath tickled the back of her neck. Rolling onto her back, she was nose-to-nose with the Vampire King, her eyes wide.

"Glob! Don't do that to me Marshall Lee!" she scolded loudly, punching him roughly in the shoulder. "You nearly made my heart go boom!"

The burn marks from his skin had healed completely and he had gotten his shirt cleaned from where the sweets had gushed out when he had fallen on the spear. Even the bruises and red marks from when she had punched him had vanished and he looked as good as new.

If only Fionna could say the same about her gooey innards.

"Shh!" Marshall Lee said in a hushed tone with a glance at Cake, ignoring Fionna's distress as he held a finger up to his green lips. "Cake'll hear you!"

Fionna furrowed her brow as she pushed him away so she could get out of bed. "So what if she does? She's my sister!"

"But she doesn't like me!" he complained as he floated in front of her, flipping himself upside down. The pout on his face looked like a smile due to his wrong-side-upness, his black hair almost tickling Fionna's head as he hovered. Cake may have been relieved that he hadn't died, but that didn't mean that she was quite about ready to forgive him for the way he'd manhandled her.

Fionna sniffed in annoyance, swatting at his head. "Can you blame her after what you've done?" She narrowed her eyes. "And who said you could come in? Creep!"

The Vampire King grimaced at her harsh tone. "Geez, I said I was sorry Fionna. Doesn't that count for anything?" Fionna's angry face was her only response, and he sighed heavily. Righting himself, he followed Fionna as she walked over to the open window. "Come on; don't be like this, Fionna."

Fionna stopped midstride, her jaw dropping open in revulsion. Don't be like…! What right did he have to tell her what to feel or how to act? It was his fault that she was all gummed up like this in the first place! If he just hadn't felt the need to convince her that he was bad—and he really wasn't, he was just obnoxious—she wouldn't want to scramble him!

Whirling on him angrily, her voice came out in a low, angry hiss. "Be like _what_ Marshall Lee? Like _what_? Angry? You have the nerve to come in here and say that after what you did? To Cake? To _me_?"

"Ah…" the Vampire King blinked rapidly. Sure, he'd been expecting Fionna to still be mad with him—who could blame her?—but not to this extent. He must have really struck a nerve the previous night and he was a bit disappointed that his apology from before hadn't excused him. He had meant it wholeheartedly, even if he had cried it out while Fionna was punching him. The tears of fear and relief he'd seen in her eyes when he had revealed his trickery…she really was the most real person he'd ever met. "We should take this outside."

With a yelp, Fionna found herself outside her window all of a sudden, clinging to Marshall Lee for dear life. His arms were wrapped securely around her waist so as not to let her fall, but the laugh that issued forth from his pale lips did little to inspire confidence in her.

"Put me down!" she screamed.

"Are you sure that's what you want?"

Fionna's cheeks reddened. "Somewhere my feet can touch without going splat, you moron!"

Humming a cheerful tune, Marshall Lee floated up to the top of the treehouse and set Fionna down, her fists balling into his plaid shirt as they had gone higher and higher. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked, wagging his eyebrows mischievously.

Fionna pursed her lips and brushed herself off, trying to regain her composure. She peered down at the ground, which was hundreds of feet away, a sick feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. "Don't do that again. Ask me first at least. What if I wiggle-waggled so much that I made you drop me? Or I punched you? You've got to learn to think things through."

"Like I should have thought things through last night?" Marshall Lee ventured cautiously.

The blonde girl paused, mouth open for a full minute before she closed it and her eyes, an air of superiority about her. _Finally_ he was catching on. She hoped.

"Yes," she nodded, folding her arms across her chest and opening her eyes again. "_Exactly_ like last night."

Marshall Lee let out a breath and folded his legs underneath his body, still floating. "Look…I said I was sorry. I really, really meant it too. I didn't just say it because you were beating the blood out of me and chasing me into the sunlight. I forgive you for that, by the way, despite almost being baked," he added humorlessly.

Fionna raised an unbelieving eyebrow, ignoring his last words. "Yu-huh."

"What? It's true! Why don't you believe me?" His voice was tinged with desperation, his eyes sincere for a change.

Fionna swallowed hard, trying not to lose her resolve. Perhaps it would have been easier for her to let it go if he didn't do stupid things like that on a daily—er nightly—basis. Just what in the Nightosphere was wrong with him? She really didn't mind the teasing, the flirting, the goofy gags, but when it got serious, when someone got hurt, when her feelings got put in a blender and her head was spinning like a tornado…

A sudden thought struck her and it took everything she had to keep from breaking out in a smile. He wanted her to think he was a bad little boy and was willing to do crazy things to prove it? Fine. Two could play at this game.

"Weren't you just telling me the other night that you're a 'bad little boy'?" She pointed out coolly, her voice emotionless. "That there's nothing good about you? You're the son of a demon? The Vampire King? Do I need to go on or do you get it?" She cocked her hip the side, striking a defiant pose. "_You _were trying to convince _me _to stay away from you. So I am."

Of all the things Marshall Lee had been expecting, that hadn't been one of them. Fionna quitting on him? That hadn't been the plan!

_Actually…what was the plan? Scare Cake? Convince Fionna that I'm a baddie? Why?_

He bit down on his lip lightly.

_Fionna was right. I really do need to think things through…_

All he knew at that moment was that he was sorry and the thought of never seeing Fionna again...it made him sadder than he had been in a long, long time.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he gasped, a hand going to his head as if he had a terrible headache. "That's not what I was trying to get across."

"Really? 'Cuz it sure as dingle-dong looked that way. Sounded like it too."

"No, Fionna I—"

"You _what_? Thought it would be fun to get me to ditch poor Gumball? I mean, he didn't mind but he did get kinda lonely while we were gone."

"No."

"Ok. Then did you think it would be fun to scare the cram out of Cake? Turn her into a vampire too?"

"No."

"That's not it either?" Fionna straightened herself to her full height. "Then it must be that you were just trying to completely alienate me. Well, congratulations Marshall Lee, you did it! You've chased me away! You're right; I'm a 'good little girl', too good for you! So now you can do whatever it is you do when you're not messing with my head."

She didn't mean her words—mostly. She was tired and she wanted Marshall Lee to see how it felt to get pranked, especially by someone who was very globbing important. A part of her was just sick of his serious nonsense and she wanted desperately all of a sudden to get this behind them. It wasn't funny anymore, something had changed.

Marshall Lee reached out to touch her, his face one of sorrow. "Fionna…"

"No!" she backed away, throwing up her hands as a barrier. "Look, I care for you Marshall Lee but I can't deal with slop like that. It really, really scared me. I thought you were dying! How is that funny?" She exhaled shakily. "Seriously dude. You mean a lot to me. I don't think it's fair that you have to put me through poop to prove it either."

For the second time in two days, Marshall Lee was speechless.

He'd never meant to hurt her. Mess with her, yes, but not hurt her. He was evil, but not _that_ evil. And even if he was, what was wrong with being nice every now and then to someone as genuine as her? She'd stuck out her neck for him—not literally of course—on numerous occasions and was his friend.

He supposed that there were different levels of being bad, and while he wanted to descend them all, there was one level he could never consciously cross into.

He wanted things to go back to how they always were, with light jabs and verbal spars, harmless flirting, and playing. He wanted Fionna to stay with him, he wanted to laugh with her, wanted to get her to try the wild side, wanted to pull her away from Gumball.

"Fionna…" he said after a bit. "I'm really, really sorry. To the depths of my soul sorry. I know you don't have demon eyes and can't see straight though my anatomy or see my deepest fears, but _please_…" A knot formed in his throat as his own emotions welled up inside, the words "don't go" stuck.

Fionna smiled.

"You're my friend, Marshall Lee," she said, walking over to him at long last. She rested a hand on the cheek she had punched just twenty-four hours ago. "Just don't do that again, ok? No more brain dumb?"

Marshall Lee snorted in acknowledgment. "No more brain dumb."


End file.
